Larry Gagosian and Masa Takayama Open Kappo Masa

The world's most powerful gallerist joins the world's top sushi chef to launch Kappo Masa

By

Howie Kahn

Updated Sept. 8, 2014 10:55 am ET

ON ONE SIDE of the sanded hinoki bar stands the 60-year-old chef Masa Takayama. On the other side, the gallerist Larry Gagosian, 69, is sitting on a stool, hungrily waiting. The two men, partners in a new restaurant, Kappo Masa, opening this month in a subterranean chamber one floor below Gagosian's Madison Avenue location, have just hugged their way through a photo shoot here at Takayama's eponymous, 10-year-old flagship. For the duration, each grinned ebulliently, almost boyishly, in a way that breaks dramatically with their public personas: Takayama, the Dalai Lama of American sushi; Gagosian, the great white shark...